Daycare, overall is wonderful. This is something I remind myself of regularly.
Especially on bitter cold mornings when he looks up at me when I ask to change his diaper (but you know, I don't really ask. Well, OK, I do and most of the time he lets me) and says Little Man stay home today? Or the more frequent response Donut Day? Which is Sunday for anyone reading this who doesn't partake in our holiest of Sunday traditions, which is not going anywhere except to the grocery store to buy donuts and then eat them in succession while talking about how we really should try and go to church once in awhile. Or try to believe that we should.
Little Man's daycare has had him in a room for 1-2 year olds, only most of them are just barely over a year old and he's two going on seven, so it was suggested that we move him up to the next class room early. I have no problem with this as I agree he's developmentally ready for a more challenging environment and as a super bonus it's less expensive for us and as an even more cool thing he's been so exhausted this week that he's managed to sleep through the night for the past four nights. (Note to Self: This would be a good time to start going to church and praising God.)
His current teachers track his every diaper change, feed him his lunch and give me a full status report at the end of every day. His new teachers will not. His lunch box comes home mostly full each day because as I understand they are allowed to be independent, there is no one coaxing him into eating his cream cheese sandwich. (Yes. That's all he will eat this week. Have you tried the stuff with the jam mixed in? Try it. You'll want to eat them every day too. And whatever, cream cheese is cheese and cheese is protein and it's not like I give it to him on white bread.... All the time....) As my authoritative and prone to generalized thinking mother has told me, if he's hungry he will eat, so I am not so concerned with that, I'm sure he has many new things to look at and watch during lunch in the big lunchroom.
What I'm not ready for is this lack of poop knowledge. I haven't changed a poop diaper all week. While that does not disappoint me in the least, there are many parts of daycare that benefit my son that make me feel like a lousy mom that I can overlook. This is not one of them.
When they taught him to drink out of a cup and I neglected to do so at home because I like cups with built in straws because they make my life easier and he's more prone to actually drinking liquid instead of spilling it everywhere, I had no regrets. There is something, however, about not knowing if he is having regular stinky bowel movements that is making me feel very unsettled. His previous teachers would tell me consistency and/or quantity. If it was a busy day and there was more than one I would know not to expect much in the near future. Now I'm flying without a Velcro strap. A mother should know that. That, his shoe size and the time of day he was born (two p.m. exactly).
I pulled one of the new teachers aside yesterday to ask if he had a BM that day. You know you are old when you use a term like BM but I'm still not old school at this enough to say 'poopy diaper' to a total stranger. She didn't know, she wasn't there in the morning. She said they would try and make note of it today. They didn't. I've asked him, gone right to the source, but he's not giving it up.
I want him to be more independent. I don't mourn the loss of his infancy, I just want to know if he took a poop.
Aha. He just cruised by and I think I have an answer.
